He shakes his head. ‘Highly unlikely. Very few written records exist for tenth-century Wales, and a lot of what there is would have been written sometime after the events, so it’s pretty unreliable. At least if you want specifics. So, no, basically, we are not going to be able to give you name, rank and serial number. What we hope to do—what lovely, lovely science now enables us to have a stab at—is to say male or female, age, cause of death, health and diet during life, and, possibly, position in their community. Given that this looks like an execution, we may get more clues when we reach the coffin below.’

‘Would the two deaths necessarily be connected?’

‘There is a precedent. There was a grave in the southeast of England found with a similarly dispatched guilty party on top, and studies strongly indicate that the body below was the victim of the crime. So, it’s possible our upper-level remains are those of a murderer, and the body in the coffin was murdered by them. But we are getting ahead of ourselves,’ he warns her, washing down his food with some mineral water. ‘Lots to search for yet. Lots to prove, or disprove.’ He might have been about to say more, but Molly looks up from her laptop on the next table and calls him over to see something.

Thistle, relaxed at last, begins to show an interest in the food. She gets up and stretches lazily, before reaching up to sniff the edge of the table, her nose twitching. Tilda smiles at her.

‘I’ll save some for you, I promise,’ she says, handing her a chip to keep hunger pangs at bay.

Dylan watches. ‘She’s looking better. You’ve done a good job of getting her right.’

Tilda considers the corner-shop diet she has been feeding the dog, the irregular hours of sleep and the erratic exercise patterns she has been subjected to. ‘I think she pretty much got better by herself,’ she says. ‘Though I can see why the men who had her gave up. No way is she ever going to catch a hare.’

‘She looks built for it.’

‘Maybe so, but when we came across one the other day she bounced after it and then just played with it. Had no intention of catching the thing. And the hare knew it too.’

‘Really?’ Dylan raises his eyebrows.

‘I swear, it just sat there, washing its face. It knew it wasn’t in any danger. Thistle didn’t even bark.’

‘Well, she wouldn’t. Proper coursers don’t. They hunt silently. That’s why they make rubbish guard dogs. They don’t track by scent either—they’re sight hounds. Though yours is probably just shy ’cause she’s embarrassed about wearing that collar.’